A Tragedy I Fear
by TakeAHike
Summary: Four years after Bella was turned, everything Edward Cullen knows has been effectively turned upside down leaving him angry, confused and shut-off. As if that wasn't enough, after living in Alaska the Cullens have decided to move to Oregon to start over.
1. Chapter 1

"_I would die if he wanted me to._"

The most frightening thought to cross my mind in the entire seventeen years of my life; death, relinquishing my hold on what I now realize to be a very short existence with full knowledge and will of my actions.

I had always wondered how I would die; of course like every other teen, it was a fleeting thought, nothing to dwell on. I wondered if I would have children and if their children would have children when I left this earth, I wondered what my husband would look like, I wondered if he would miss me when I was gone. Eventually, following my train of thought I would have covered the manner, reason and time of my death.

But that was the extent of it.

I was a teenager, I had too much life to live and there was no time to think about death. I never realized how quickly that could change, almost at once: a split second, the spin of a wheel, and the skid of tires on a road slick with rain…

It all changed, and the sober reality of death hit me in the face, suffocating me. Yet there he was, there just as suddenly as my life shifted and cracked. It was like seeing for the first time that was the only possible way to describe it because I had to have been blind before that.

After that moment, death was never a question of 'how', or 'why' but merely 'when'. After that moment my life was _his_ to protect, his to nurture or his to snuff out if he so wished. I promised myself that when the time came I would not complain, I would not beg, I would not question it; as strange as it was, I trusted him.

"_I would die if he needed me to._"

I never doubted the time would come; even as everything around me seemed to be looking up, the danger lurked in the shadows where my happiness somehow did not reach, waiting, watching, hungry. That was when I made the promise, not to his face of course because I knew he wouldn't hear it even if I wasn't who he truly wanted, who he truly needed. I made that promise to myself, though I suppose now that it was as good as telling him…

I would die because I loved him in a way I didn't think was possible, in a way I was sure he could not love me, in a way I _knew_ he couldn't love me.

If you had asked me what I would do in a life and death situation a month ago, I would have ignored you and pondered about it privately when no one could see the way my face twisted in thought. It was a stupid, ungrounded question at the time but now, there was ground for it, now I was sure I knew what my answer would be. Call it morbid, but I would choose death without a second thought if it was he who did me in.

After all, my life was his and his alone, the very least I could do was allow him to do with it as he pleased. If somehow in my useless and almost pathetic human weakness I could repay him I would leap at the very opportunity.

That's when I decided, on a Friday night in the darkness of my room as sleep evaded me I promised myself that I would willingly die if it made him happy. If he was happy, my life was inconsequential.

On that Friday night, while my uncle slept soundly down the hall, I decided that I would give my existence if it meant Edward Cullen's happiness.

_****_

A/N: This chapter is rather short, a small introductory to the main story so that you get a feel for the situation before it happens. The next chapter has been posted as well to speed things up a little bit. Enjoy and review please! _Thank you!_


	2. Chapter 2

I wasn't born in Oregon and I most definitely wasn't raised here.

Quite the opposite in many instances actually. I was born just outside of Boston – a place where seasons _actually_ mean something – and I lived there until I was eleven. As far as technicalities go, I'm an only child. Where technicalities fail however, I have a step-brother from my mother's previous marriage. A step-brother I've seen a total of once who (if my memory serves me) has some kind of ridiculous hippy name like Phoenix or Lennon… or quite possibly both. For all he knows or cares, I'm sure he probably thinks I'm still thirteen with braces and a bad haircut.

I remember loving Massachusetts; having the sun in the summer, the snow in the winter (I've always been a sucker for the iconic white Christmas) among other things. I could have lived out the rest of my normal life with normal friends, enjoying normal seasons. I'm sure I even wouldn't have minded the occasional rainy day…

I've learned though, through the course of my life that happiness is tangible and therefore extremely vulnerable.

When I was ten and a half, my dad – a person I always regarded as invincible -- was killed in a head-on collision on a stretch of country back road – sleep depravation the cause they had said.

I didn't go to the funeral; my mother's choice at the time, I think she wasn't sure I could handle it. Instead, I stayed at home with my uncle Luke who flew in from Oregon for the occasion the day they buried my dad.

Some days, I still resent her for not letting me say my goodbyes.

But she promised that we wouldn't be a broken family when she got home that day. She promised me every day when I got home after school and when she tucked me in at night; she promised we'd stick together through it all.

I believed her.

We held together as a "family" for another half a year. After that, it was like the promises never left her lips and before I could say anything about it… she told me she was leaving. In a mind-numbing change of events, I was given two very different choices: live with my great-grandmother Eileen in North Carolina or move in with my uncle Luke – my father's brother -- in Oregon.

Uncle Luke won out. A constant aroma of moth balls and the presence of a minimum ten cats sunk Great Grandma Eileen's chances. Not to mention my uncle seemed to be my last connection to my dad.

A week later, I moved to Oregon with two suitcases and empty promises.

I've lived here – in the constant rain and unintelligible seasons – for five years now. I still miss the snow.

As I'm sure you can imagine, five years dredges on almost painfully slow when you live every day with the idea of being unwanted by your own mother. My uncle Luke – who doesn't like the idea of being called an uncle, he says it makes him feel old – helped with that I guess by taking me in and doing as much as he possibly could for me. But the one person who made me feel wanted, made me feel especially loved didn't step into my life until much later.

---

_**One Month Earlier**_

I watched him as he walked, lunch tray gripped in paled fingers, on the opposite side of the small cafeteria. I was staring; I knew it, everyone who bothered to look my way knew it… but I didn't care. If he caught me, I would most likely look away and hope he wouldn't approach me about it later, but he wouldn't… he never did. He was probably used to my staring at this point.

He was perfect; there was no doubt about that. The way he walked, the way he talked, the way his lips moved as he spoke flawless words. Elegant, graceful and perfect; someone the Gods could be jealous of. He was immaculate and flawless and I – like a large portion of the female existence in the school probably was -- was in love with him. Yet, there was a difference between them and I…

"Kasey…?"

I turned quickly as the sound of my name dragged me painfully back to the reality of a boisterous lunch break. Even if he hadn't noticed my staring, apparently my friend – Jessica Prestwick -- had.

"Kasey, what do you think about a half wall of Caribbean blue for my room?" Tossing her dark hair slightly, Jessica's eyes danced across the side of my pallid face. I didn't bother to look at her; I was still caught up in _him_.

"Uh – yeah, sure." Came the half reply. Had I been paying attention, I was sure I would have felt bad for the horrible attempts at conversation that were leaving my lips.

On the contrary I felt no remorse for the lost conversation or the disinterested tone in my voice; this was a conversation I could easily follow mindlessly without taking my eyes away from the more important subject.

His long legs carried his frame past several full cafeteria tables, catching several eyes as he passed them, however he seemed passive about the occurrence, as if he hadn't seen them.

Then, suddenly, as if something had caught his attention his eyes drifted up and caught mine; a sudden fire erupting almost violently in the pit of my stomach as his eyes – a blue that contrasted my murky brown greatly – met mine and a smile pushed up the corner of his lips. It wasn't long before I could feel a smile on my own lips.

He was mine, all mine… and he didn't seem to mind because I was his.

Sidling up to the table, the boy placed his lunch tray in the empty space before me, the smile ever present on his features as he reached across the table ever so slowly to take my hand as he lowered himself into the seat.

His touch was electric; a touch that still made my heart skip a floundering beat.

I was too busy staring that Jessica's greeting bared penetrated my thoughts.

Jeremy, _my_ Jeremy; my saving grace...

"Jeremy." I didn't bother to look, but I could hear the smile in her voice. A simply sickeningly sweet tone that would have made me absolutely sick had I been paying complete attention; she had always liked him.

"Jessica." He nodded, relinquishing the eye contact with me as he ran a hand through his already messy chocolate brown hair and smiled in her direction politely.

"So how's the planning for Seattle trip going?" Jessica asked in a somewhat curious manner, her eyes – and question it seemed – directed solely toward Jeremy.

"Well," Jeremy shrugged as he threw a glance in my direction with a raised brow, "I've had my bags packed for a week…"

In a moment, I knew what the glance meant.

If for one second in the history of my friendship with Jessica I had cared to let her into the inner workings of my three and a half year relationship with Jeremy, I would have let her know that the glance was a challenge of sorts. Since the mention of the idea of the trip to Seattle Jeremy had expected me to back out. Thus far, I was still keen – though slightly nervous and immeasurably happy with my determination – on the small getaway.

"Luke is still fine with it." I challenged back, a small smirk pulling my lips into a tight smile. "He's even lending us a car."

"In that case Jess, planning is going amazing. We're leaving tonight…" Taking up his plastic, cafeteria issue fork, Jeremy stabbed at the plate of cold pasta on his tray with a gleeful smile chiseled visibly into every facial feature.

I could only guess what kind of pride he was taking in his victory… he was always too smug for his own good.

---

Tossing the last bag into the trunk, I brought it down with a slight slam as Jeremy had a final chat with Luke who had insisted on standing on the edge of the lawn to bid us a safe trip.

Receiving a questioning glance from Luke, I shrugged slightly in wordless reply; it had been an accident…. Jeremy took the sound differently though and he quickly said his goodbyes – complete with parting handshakes and macho pats on the back – while I paced toward the driver's side door.

The rest of the school day had passed rather quickly. To my surprise, all I had to do when I arrived home after school was pack my bags, Jeremy had arranged everything else with such competence and efficiency that it almost made me check to see if he was the right person…

Pulling open the door, I settled into the driver's seat with a sigh, glancing at the clock on the dashboard as I stuck the keys into the ignition and twisted it for the accessories.

7:00 PM.

If Luke's directions were right, we'd be in Seattle at ten, a three hour drive; I made a mental note to make Jeremy split the drive and take the last hour and a half.

I heard the passenger door open and Jeremy climbed in with a smile on his perfect lips and I quickly forgot about the three hour drive. "Ready to go?" He questioned, reaching over his shoulder to grab the seatbelt.

"Yes, sir," I couldn't help but smile; it still boggled my mind as to how happy he could be made by a trip. I twisted the key sharply, starting the car's engine for emphasis. Yes, I was ready… I wasn't sure why I had been so apprehensive about the trip before…

Waving briefly to my uncle – who was still standing idly by the edge of the road – I pulled away from the house.

The sun set early and by 8 o'clock it had rained twice and I was driving in the dark. However, I had been driving on the back roads for the most part, so it wasn't really that big of a deal, I could handle the driving…

"Kasey?" Jeremy broke off from a hum somewhere just outside of a small town in Washington State – I couldn't be sure which one, my uncle had spouted off so many town names in his directions spiel that I hadn't had time to memorize them all.

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking…" from the corner of my eyes I could see him wipe his hands on his pants before he began fiddling with his fingers nervously, but I couldn't be sure; we were still on the back roads, there were no lights here. "What would you say if I asked you to marry me?"

"What, excuse me?" My hand twitched on the wheel and I felt my heart skip a beat entirely. I couldn't have possibly heard right…

"N- not now of course, after high school… during the summer before we go to college or something." Jeremy stuttered out the next couple of words as if my reaction had caught him completely off-guard.

Taking a deep breath through my nose and letting it out through my mouth slowly, I concentrated more on the road than I had ever done since we had left my uncle on the lawn at my house.

"Jeremy, what would your parents think? I don't think they like me _now_, they're going to hate me if, well if –."

"They won't be the ones marrying you will they?" Jeremy's voice was velvet, and I couldn't help but take a breath in order to begin to sort my thoughts as he continued. "I love you and if I love you it doesn't matter what they think of you. As long as it's you and me, I could deal with being methodically extracted from their lives and will…"

"Jeremy…" I cringed at the thought of Jeremy not being a part of his family anymore… being disowned. That was _me_, not him…

"Kasey…" He soothed, his hand reaching out to touch the top of my leg lightly. "I'll be on my own for a week or two and then my mom'll give in. She couldn't live without me and she knows it."

The smile was in his voice again. "And if that doesn't work, we'll just make our own family…"

"We're seventeen and this is the rest of our lives you're talking about…"

"And I can't think of a better way to grow old, can you?"

I processed the question for less than a half minute. "No."

"Well it's settled then." Jeremy slapped his own leg with finality, a sharp sound resonating through the small car in the silence that had grown there.

I still wasn't convinced.

Chewing my lip, slightly I felt the need to speak up still. "Jeremy, would you really want to marry me? I mean… what if things don't work out between us, what if –."

_  
What if we ended up like my parents?_

"You think too much, you know that? And what do you mean, 'if things don't work out'?" My heart skipped almost painfully in my chest. "I'll always want you Kasey, forever."

"But…" I faltered, stumbled over my next argumentative point…

"We don't have to do anything you don't want to do…" Jeremy murmured, a small, comforting smile pressed upon his lips. Still, it was a different smile… a false smile of sorts.

The look inspired guilt and I gripped the wheel tightly.

"No, Jeremy… that's not what I meant," the darkened, deserted road – slick with the fresh rain -- gleamed as the headlights of my car passed over it and I dared to take my eyes off of it to convey the feelings I was having trouble speaking of.

"I just don't think it's a phenomenal idea… we're young… I just…" I floundered, searching for the right words to say, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him…

"We can talk about this when we get settled in Seattle if you wa --…" Jeremy started, the end of his sentence strangled off by the urgent blare of a horn.

Ripping my eyes away from Jeremy, my sight was met by a pair of blinding headlights that practically shut my eyes as I squinted against them. Hands frozen on the wheel, a million thoughts flashed through my mind as I blinked against the invading lights. A voice from the passenger seat yelled something that I couldn't quite hear and in a moment I felt hands on mine, turning the wheel under my hands as I stared forward hypnotically.

The help came too late.

The initial impact felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach powerfully. One second I was going one way and then next I felt helpless as I was ripped in the opposite direction and I was no longer in control of the vehicle.

The crunching scream of metal as it put up a fight and lost with twisting, shards of finality invaded my ears and I felt little stabs of pain in my arms that grew and stung.

This couldn't be happening, this had to be some kind of horrible nightmare; a dream… a memory… closing my eyes tightly, I turned my face away from the shattering windshield.

Quite unexpectedly, everything was still and suddenly – compared to the last few minutes (which seemed like an eternity in their own right) – the _almost_ silence was deafening. The pitter-patter of a light rain echoed in my ears too loudly as a very uncomfortable and strangely thick calm settled over everything.

"Jer—" his name left my lips in a strangled gurgle, breaking the silence and giving the situation a new reality.

I struggled to breathe as I twisted in the twisted heap of what was once a Nissan. I could feel a warmth trickling down the side of my face as a sharp pain stabbed my side pointedly. I knew I shouldn't move, but an urgent need to reach Jeremy overwhelmed every thought that told me to stay still.

Twisting in the seat, my shaking, dirtied hands searched for the seat belt release with determination. I needed to reach, to touch him.

"Kase—." There was a croak from the passenger seat, a creaking shift and an incomplete cough. "Don't move; you have to stop moving." Another cough escaped his lips and abruptly, I could smell the metallic twinge of blood. "Are you alright?"

I pondered for a moment, assessing myself as best I could in the darkness. "My head hurts…" I whispered, swallowing back the now ever-present pain.

The tips of his fingers – slightly frigid – met my cheek and I could tell his hands were trembling. "Just stay still…keep talking to me. Someone'll find us... I love you, we'll be fine."

"Ok…"

The silence hung thick in the air before I broke it; the silence frightened me now, not hearing his voice frightened me.

"Jeremy? Jeremy, I think it's a good idea… w- what you said before…" closing my eyes tightly, I battled past a surge of blunt pain before I continued, "about getting married…"

"Yeah?" The smile was in his voice for a split second.

"Yeah." Shifting my leg, I could hear the glass crunching under my sneakers and I felt a sharp pain high in my thigh, a pain that pushed a slight squeak from my lips.

"Please don't move…" Jeremy begged, and I could do nothing but oblige.

"I'll marry you after high school on one condition…" I rasped, curling my hand into a fist before opening my hand again, flexing my fingers.

"Anything you want…" There was a slight hitch as he went to take a breath.

"Ask me properly." I smiled through the pain, and I was sure the look on my face resembled a grimace of sorts. The sentiment was enough however; I knew Jeremy couldn't see it in the darkness either way.

There was a broken chuckle from the passenger side of what used to be a car and I heard Jeremy take another deep breath and I waited for him to rise to the simple challenge. He always rose to meet a challenge…

I waited. I waited until the breath I didn't know I was holding began to burn my chest. I waited after I took another breath and began to hold that one … but Jeremy's side of the car remained silent and still.

"Jeremy?"

Silence.

"Jer -- ?" The panic in my voice was raw, unhidden as I shifted in my seat frantically. He should have answered by now…

Suddenly, as I squirmed futilely against the bent metal and the seatbelt, I felt very very alone though I knew Jeremy should have been beside me…

_**A/N: **Because I have an awesome best friend who tells me these things when my mind runs with ideas, I realize that the 'one month earlier' thing can be confusing. It's pretaining to Kasey's point of view in the first chapter. The events after the 'one month earlier' heading are the events one month earlier than Kasey's reflection in the first chapter. So uh, the usual I guess after that... review and show some loooove. Thank you 3._


	3. Chapter 3

_  
__**A/N:**__ Just a quick little note, this story is based off of the BOOKS. Not the MOVIE. If you don't understand certain points in this story, it's probably because you haven't read the books. If you haven't read the books, do yourself a favour and read them. The pages are lined with crack… it's an awesome series._

_**Recommended listening;;**  
"Everyday is exactly the same" – Nine Inch Nails  
"Vampires" – Fastball  
"Decode (Acoustic)" – __Paramore__  
"Godspeed" – Anberlin  
"Comfortably Numb" – Pink Floyd._

_

* * *

  
_

Time passed impossibly slow.

Seconds ticked by into minutes and minutes leaked into hours, but each were inseparable from the other; time had no meaning. For all I knew, what felt like hours could have merely been minutes, seconds; I couldn't tell.

There were several instances when I was sure I had seen headlights passing the mangled wreck and I allowed my hope to build each time until I realized I had not seen anything. In other moments, I thought I heard Jeremy speak and I found myself answering before I could stop to tell myself it was silent in the car.

I don't know how long it took them to find us, but when they did my lack of hope – worn and inflated and deflated past recognition -- allowed no room for elation when I felt hands pulling me from the vehicle and saw the flashing, urgent, lights of the emergency vehicles.

I don't remember much between that and snippets of memory which seemed too dream-like to be real.

***

I could feel myself coming through, breaking the surface of the cloudy haze that filled my mind. Anesthetic; it had to be, I could sense the lingering numbness in varied places in my body and feel the dry need for water in my mouth. Rolling over slightly, I blinked several times to clear my vision of the lingering blurry, darkened spots and slowly, as my vision cleared, I realized this did not look like a hospital room at all.

I was home.

Pulling myself out of the double bed groggily, I shivered slightly as my feet hit the cool floorboards.

Home.

Slinking across the hardwood flooring, I headed toward the door on the opposite side of the room. Reaching the door, my fingers loosely gripped the cool metal of the door handle and followed the motions of opening the door.

Passing a small mirror in the hall, I stopped to inspect myself. My hair – which closely resembled a haystack after a windstorm – was practically a non-entity as I scanned the person I saw reflected back at me in the mirror and quickly, the dream theory evaporated before my inquiring eyes. Touching the thick gauzy bandage on my neck, I could see a hint of red through the white; still bleeding. My right cheek was dotted with tiny, superficial cuts, from the glass I supposed.

I was in the middle of said inspection when the shifting of a chair on the kitchen linoleum downstairs made me jump slightly. In my confused daze, I hadn't remembered that I shouldn't be alone. My Uncle would be around somewhere…

Turning away from the mirror, I started for the stairs, each step creaking under my weight as I travelled. It wasn't long before I made it to the bottom of the flight with surprising ease and lack of incident.

Pausing on the last stair, I could see my Uncle from where I stood, my hand touching the railing as I studied the scene before me. Luke sat at the small kitchen table, his elbows propped up on the hard surface, his back turned toward me. Cradling his head deep in the comfort of his hands, the kitchen phone sat off the hook at his elbow and the busy signal echoed in the silence.

"Luke?" My voice sounded strange as it broke the silence, resembling more of a croak than anything.

At the sound of his name, Luke pulled his head from his hands abruptly; a weary look plastered on every inch of his face and thick, dark, bruise-like bags lined his eyes when he turned to look at me. Easily, it looked like he had aged ten years.

"Kasey…" Quickly, he pushed himself to his feet and he replaced the phone in its cradle with shaking hands before turning toward where I stood. "I'm glad you're awake. The doctor said you would sleep for a while, but I was worried …"

"How long have I been-- ?"

"Two days."

Fingering the railing, tracing the contour of the wood slightly with the tips of my digits I processed the passing of time I did not remember before I opened my mouth to begin my inquisition pertaining to the missing hours, the missing days. "Have… have they released Jeremy yet?"

"No. Kasey –"

"We should go see him then, I'll bring him some –."

Running his hand through his dark, messy hair, Luke placed his hands on his hips, taking a deep breath and exhaling noisily, his eyes directed toward his feet. "Kasey," Luke took an unsteady step toward where I stood, his eyes surveying my figure before he spoke. "I think maybe you should sit down…"

Did I look that bad? I had just passed a mirror in the hall moments ago, I wasn't missing anything... two ears, eyes and a nose….

"I can stand…" I murmured, gripping the railing tightly as I tried to grasp the concept of what exactly was happening here.

I hated surprises and I hated the way Luke composed himself now…. I recalled the look on his face from a past memory and could only match it with one moment in memory. The memory of when I had been seven and he had hired a clown to entertain the kids at my make-shift birthday party… only to learn that I was recently settling a deep seated fear of clowns when it was far too late to stop the clown from making his appearance.

Did I mention I hated surprises?

Sighing deeply once more to himself, I watched as Luke hovered closely to where I stood his hands back on his hips but his eyes were trained on me instead of his feet this time.

"Kasey, they tried the best they could… Jeremy didn't…."

This didn't sound like a clown story; this didn't sound like anything remotely like that memory at all…

"… They couldn't…." His sentence was fragmented, as if the words fought to overcome some deep want to keep the truth sealed away it seemed. "Kasey, Jeremy… passed away early this morning… the blood loss they couldn't – "

"Where's Jeremy?" No. The warm tears prickled at the corners of my eyes as I asked the impossible question. I really didn't want the answer, but I couldn't help but ask the question. He couldn't be gone, there had to be a mistake… not my Jeremy. No…

"Kasey, honey…" Luke shifted closer, slowly, carefully…

"Where. Is. Jeremy?"

Even through the lingering haze, I could hear the alarm and urgency in my own tone as I repeated my query slower, more poignantly. Luke had to have heard it too because I could see the warring emotions playing across his face as he looked at me. If I had been thinking about his emotions, I would have felt bad for him… the messenger, the bearer of bad news….

"Kasey, please just sit down and we'll…"

"No."

"They tried, Kase…" Luke stumbled over his words, a consolatory tone weaving through each of his words as he took a precautionary step toward me.

"It hit on _my_ side of the car…" I could feel my legs trembling, feel my knees losing strength as the unfamiliar voice verbalized what I was thinking … this wasn't fair, this wasn't possible, I shouldn't be standing here, Jeremy should be…

"They said you were lucky…."

I could see his lips moving, but I was no longer paying attention, I couldn't pay attention… I couldn't breathe…

Suddenly a numbness – one unlike the forgiving wash and grasp of anesthetic – crept up my legs, spreading quickly with the flow of blood until my entire body was senseless. The last thing I saw before a complete darkness washed over me was my vision turning sideways and the floor rushing up to greet me.

***

I didn't go to the funeral.

I didn't want to say my good-byes. If I didn't see him lying there like that in the casket I could deny it, if only for a little bit longer.

If I didn't see a cold, soulless vessel, I could keep him. I could keep my Jeremy as he always had been to me; alive, full of an impossible radiance that had once seemed inextinguishable to me.

In actuality, I didn't do much for the next few weeks; pulling myself from bed for anything other than necessity seemed pointless. The sun rose and the sun set and it wasn't long before I lost track of the days; the beginning of the days were marked only as the point in which I became so restless that I could not sleep anymore. The end of the day was noted when my uncle trudged through the door and made a varying array of noise shuffling around the kitchen downstairs for food. I ate little, spoke even less and soon cut school completely from my schedule; life didn't seem live able and as some sort of punishment for my transgression, I was made to live it, made to live in a hell with no foreseeable end.

Day in and day out I was left behind to suffer the beat of a heart and the pain it caused when it tried to go through its normal functions though it was broken.

***

The lines passed beside the car in a repetitive, almost hypnotic blur, melding together at points and breaking in others as I watched with a sort of fabricated fascination … it was just a mess of dashes and lines really, but I knew I was in no mood to start a lively conversation so I continued to watch them pass…

The weather seemed to reflect my feelings. Rain and cloud cover, it felt too dark to be day but too bright to be night; a twilight of sorts…

My silent rebellion lasted a little over the two week mark according to a rather determined Luke. Despite my own resolute attempts to stay locked away in my room forever, Luke seemed to be planning otherwise. Of course I hadn't made it easy for him to go through with his plan. I was stubborn to the very core, my father's daughter… that was scathingly apparent. Unfortunately, Luke was his mother's son and my father too had earned his obstinate nature from the matriarch of the Calder family. Fire against fire… a war of redundancy, a battle of attrition that pitted immovable force against immovable force. As far as I could recall, I hadn't given in, but it wasn't difficult to see – sitting in the passenger seat of Luke's 2002 Mercury Cougar, school bag at my feet – that I hadn't won this round.

I hadn't been keeping track of the time, so when – after an immeasurable amount of seconds and minutes – the car slowed and turned, rolling lazily over several speed bumps, I couldn't help but look up.

School.

The first thing to hit me was that every aspect -- right down to the 'Welcome to the Home of the Indians' sign draped over what I assumed to be the entrance -- of the building screamed institution.

Pulling slowly to a stop, Luke shifted the car into park right in front of the red brick building almost pointedly.

"It's uh –." Luke was the first to break the silence with an awkward clearing of his throat, pausing mid-sentence to shuffle around the bunch of pamphlets and computer print-offs scattered in the backseat in search. "—Scappoose High."

"I know it's far out from where we're living right now, but I think this is what you need, what _we_ need right now."

What I needed…?

Luke pressed on casually however; he must not have noticed the internal echoes of his words playing across my face… my reaction.

"Phil Moore's daughter, Layla, goes here."

The name rang a bell somewhere in the back of my mind and though I couldn't place a face with the name at the moment, I was sure I'd recognize her when I saw her.

"She's offered to show you around until you get the hang of it here…" Luke informed, shifting slightly in his seat. "It's small, not a lot of kids, so it shouldn't be too long until you're settled. They're in the swing of things already… "

In the swing of things… so my arrival – in the middle of January – would be extra noticed; Wonderful.

Now that I had the time to think about it, I recalled catching him fussing over school pamphlets for the past couple of weeks; pamphlets which he was quick to hide in the rare moments I ventured from my self-imposed solitude. I'd overheard him debating the best course of action with his work buddies and had remembered being informed quietly of impromptu meetings with "clients" (more appropriately called principals now, I was sure) to see if I'd missed much of the curriculum thus far and if they'd be willing to allow a late transfer. I just never thought much of it, never thought about the pamphlets and the phone calls or the meetings; it was hard to think of such things when you didn't want to think about anything anymore. I really should have seen this coming now that hind sight was kicking around…

"If you… can't stay here, I took the day off. All you have to do is give me a call and I'll be here to get you…"

Looking up at the school through the rain dotted, tinted car windows, I sighed lowly. I knew what he meant; he wanted this to work out, he needed this to work out because after this, I was sure that he didn't know what to do with me. After this, _I_ didn't know what to do with me…

Shifting in the passenger seat, I set my eyes forward, staring through the windshield into the student parking lot momentarily. Taking a slow, steady breath in the silence, I took hold of my backpack and quickly reached for the door handle before my nerve could leak through my fingers. Cracking the door open, I slid out of the car and slipped my arms through the straps of my bag; a new feeling, a feeling of reality mixed with utter fear, raw and unrefined pulsing through my veins, rising to greet me.

This was going to be an interesting day to say the least.

***

I found the front office with relative ease, placed exactly where one would expect a front office, to the right of the main entrance. A lovely sounding receptionist, Ms. Cole, was quick to help once I wandered through the heavy, squeaking doors… I supposed that the blank look pressed upon my face and the slow movements – unsure and precautionary – were a dead give-away though. I was given a schedule, not unlike the one from my old school, and handed a map while Ms. Cole helpfully explained the quickest route to my first class, AP Biology with Mr. Britt. With one floor, I was sure it wouldn't be too difficult to find my way to the next classes so I tuned out the latter part of her directions.

By the time I ducked out of the office – map and schedule in hand along with a school newsletter – the school had come to relative life. Once empty, the small foyer was a small bustle of groups of chatting teens, some noticed me and others didn't… either way I just stared at the map clutched in my hands, it was easier than catching the staring eyes.

Following the directions Ms. Cole had offered, AP Biology was not difficult to locate, just two short stretches of locker lined hallways away from the main office.

Ducking into the classroom after two giggling girls, I headed for the teacher's desk immediately, my schedule at the ready. I was sure he'd be expecting me nonetheless… not many people transferred in this late…

Approaching the desk quietly, I studied Mr. Britt quickly; a rough looking man with a scruffy beard and large bottle lens glasses… in his pudgy fingers, he held a copy of some large text, his eyes darting across the page as students dropped assignments on the corner of his desk. As they wandered away back to their desks, their eyes lingered slightly on my figure…

Unfolding my schedule, I furled the paper slightly in hopes to catch his attention and though he may not have been able to differentiate it from the furling papers being handed in, I supposed my shadow or my hovering finally caught his attention.

Glancing up at me from his book, Mr. Britt begrudgingly stuffed an old receipt in the pages to save his place, dropping the text to his desk before scanning my face for only a moment.

"Ah, yes; Ms. Calder, is it? It's wonderful to have you…" Mr. Britt grimaced, taking the schedule I extended toward him with some amount of annoyance. Lovely, sarcasm…

As he looked over the already creased piece of paper through thick lenses of outdated glasses, I could feel the eyes on the back of my head, on the side of my face, staring…. In my chest, my heart picked up pace, beating erratically as I forced myself to stare – eyes unseeing and unfocused – at the stuffed owl sitting, stuffed meal in its talons, on the edge of the vintage desk. I was so concentrated on ignoring the feeling of being watched that I hardly heard his next words or see the text book he brandished at me. "Ms. Calder? Here's your text book. You can have a seat next to Mr. Cullen. Alphabetical order if you don't mind…"

Snapping my eyes up to his rough face, a puzzled look crossed my visage for only a moment. He was throwing me to the wolves so soon? "Uh- I'm- Sorry?" I croaked as quietly as was possible; though the chatter in the classroom was still a lull of mish-mash voices, I could tell my new classmates were listening.

"Mr. Cullen. Take a seat next to Mr. Cullen. Second table from the back on the right, alphabetical order Ms. Calder…" Mr. Britt sighed, handing back my schedule and shooing me away from his desk with a dismissive wave of his hand after I had slowly taken the book from his hands.

Taking my schedule I tucked it safely into my jacket pocket and slowly turned away from the desk; if I could stay at the front of the class, chit-chatting with the teacher – as unpleasant as he seemed -- I would… but it was now or never I figured. This had work; there was nothing else… after this there was nothing…

Turning away from his desk and starting down the center aisle almost reluctantly, I kept my eyes on my worn sneakers for a small while until I mustered up the courage to tear my eyes up.

Glancing up to locate my seat, I caught a pair of eyes staring without shame, staring with such intensity that I felt them burning right into mine… if looks could kill, I was sure that I would have died right there, under his glare, his dark eyes boring right into my soul.

* * *

  
**_  
A/N: _**_You know the drill, R&R please._  
_  
**3**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**DISCLAIMER:**_ _I don't own any of the characters (besides the original ones (Kasey, Cole, Layla, Andrew, Luke etc.)). They're Stephenie Meyer's toys, I'm just playing with 'em._

_**Recommended listening for this chapter;;**  
* The Truth About Heaven – Armor For Sleep  
* Thinking of you – Katy Perry  
* Eyes on Fire – Blue Foundation  
* Twilight – Vanessa Carleton  
* World Without You – Beth Hart_

* * *

I couldn't feel my legs much less move them and I most definitely could not stop staring.

His pallid skin looked bright against the darkness outside but his dark eyes – narrowed in my direction -- matched the turbulent skies; his copper hair – an organized mess that looked absolutely effortless – was a shade I had never seen before. In his own right, he was absolutely beautiful, impossibly gorgeous, and flawless down to every curvature of his face, his perfect lips…

My chest began to burn, lungs begging for air that I hadn't realized I was depriving them of and quickly, with the intake of air, I pulled my eyes away from the godly being. Flitting to the last desk in the row, my eyes touched each table, counting them; assigning the tables a number until the leering eyes drifted into my peripheral vision. The gorgeous, god-like boy with the dark, cold unwavering eyes sat at the second table from the back of the class, sat in the seat beside the empty seat I had been given to call my own… presumably the Mr. Cullen Mr. Britt had referred to prior.

Taking a breath, I forced myself to regulate my suddenly erratic breathing, coaxing my legs out of their momentary paralysis to head to my appointed seat, my eyes shying away from the angered deity. There was no need to call any further attention to my arrival by refusing my seat; however, this same refusal that kept me relatively unnoticed seemed to enrage my new classmate, Mr. Cullen further.

Sliding onto the stool, I lowered by backpack to the floor beside the lab table slowly and I could feel the heat radiating from what I assumed was his concentrated stare. I had been stared at before through the course of the still very early day, and obviously through the course of my life, but this stare… there was nothing I could match it to other than the hot seer of a stove element. Part of me wished the ground would just open up and swallow me whole… this was torture.

***

The remainder of the class ticked by impossibly slow, the heat of the stare I felt from the boy sitting at my side never ceasing, never leaving. Throughout the class I stayed as quiet and as still as I could possibly manage and my eyes – unseeing -- never left the inside of the text book for longer than a moment, yet from the corner of my eye, I could see where his clenched fist sat, pressed tightly against his open book. If his skin wasn't so pale already I would have expected that his knuckles would be blanched from stretching out over the bone structure in his hand.

By the time the bell rang to signal the end of the class I felt the relief as I was released from his stare, I knew this because from the corner of my eye I could see him burst from his seat almost too quickly with his books gathered neatly under his pale arm; apparently finally set free from whatever bond had held him there to begin with. It took him seconds to reach the classroom door and I hadn't realized I was staring after him until several of my classmates paused in the same doorway he had passed through – jaw set and eyes focused ahead of him -- moments prior, to throw a glance my way.

It was enough to shake me out of my daze and very quickly, I shifted my gaze to my backpack on the floor and gathered it without a second thought on the matter. The day was starting out wonderfully… I thought sarcastically as I pushed myself off the stool, maybe it wasn't too late to call Luke in to save the day… very clearly I was already hated here. Even this far reaching, small community wasn't far enough… he had to have known what had happened, the strange Cullen boy must have know; that was the only explanation I could think of for the uncomfortable atmosphere, the angry stares I was forced to endure. He knew what I had done and even here I couldn't escape it. Luke had been wrong and I had been right. It was better to stay in my room as I had been doing… at least there I could deal with my own guilt, my own anger; I didn't need the judgment of others to make me feel horrible. I would tell him exactly this when he picked me up from the same spot he had dropped me off this morning, not but two hours ago; I would tell him it wasn't worth the effort it had taken. I would tell him I had died with Jeremy that night on the back road…

Without bothering to dig my already crumpled schedule from the depths of my jean pocket, I took a hard right as soon as I had reached the door, the opposite way the Cullen boy had ventured off in. There was no need for a schedule if I was calling it quits and it had been such a short time since I had left the office that morning to need a map to know where I needed to be going.

"Kasey?"

I had just about reached the end of the slightly crowded hall when the sound of my name stopped me in mid stride. At first, the sound was strange, almost as if I hadn't been expecting to hear it at all today, but then, it confused me. I hadn't been here nearly long enough for anyone to know it yet. Turning, it wasn't long before I had found the source of what had caused the mixed reaction among the other individuals ignoring my presence.

"Kasey. Hi, sorry I'm late…" She shifted her books from one arm to the next, freeing up a hand that soon became outstretched in greeting as she approached me. A short girl, her face round and eyes shimmering with the smile that lit up her face. "Layla Moore, we used to hang out all the time when we were younger before my dad took the job here and we moved… not sure if you remember."

Flicking an auburn tress out of her eyes, I took up her hand with slight hesitation, shaking it shortly before I allowed a small, almost fabricated, smile to cross my face. Now I remembered her face, now I could match it with the name Luke had given me moments before I'd left the car this morning. Layla Moore.

"What class do you have next?"

Almost mechanically, my hand dove into my pocket to retrieve the crumpled mess that had been my pristine schedule once upon a time this morning. Unfolding it, my eyes scanned the paper in a jittery manner until the second period slot caught my attention, "Uh- Trig with… Mr. Dinardo?"

"Well I'm headed there too, so we'll be going this way." Layla replied rather shortly, her voice overly confident as she motioned in the opposite direction that I had been heading. Abruptly, my stomach churned oddly; the same direction the Cullen boy had been heading when he had rushed from Biology class moments ago…

It didn't take long for Layla to notice my hesitation. "Kasey?"

"Hmm?"

"This way." I watched Layla motion, take a leading step in the appropriate direction but still, I was hesitant, my eyes almost unwittingly scanning the sea of unfamiliar faces for any sign of the boy who had suddenly made me want to abandon this chance at normal. It didn't take me long to realize he wasn't here, he wasn't close. For one, I couldn't see his radiant skin, paled beyond belief. Second, I was sure I wouldn't be the only one staring if he had been here; I couldn't have been the only one that noticed his impossible beauty that seemed to outshine any that I saw before me in the hallway now.

Taking a steadying breath and gripping the straps of my backpack with an almost uncertainty, I took several long strides and caught up with Layla before she could motion again.

***

By the time we stepped into the next class, my nerves settled immeasurably when I could not locate the impossibly gorgeous Cullen boy in the nearly full classroom. Still, I couldn't help but keep the image of his face in the back of my mind; it seemed impossible to remove even should I have liked to at this point...

I was so distracted by this strange realization that I allowed my body to move almost on its own accord, following Layla and finding a seat at the back of the classroom near her. However, it didn't take long for me to realize this class was not going to be the same as Biology class this morning.

"Hey! New chick!"

The cry shook me roughly out of my wandering thoughts, bringing them quickly back to my current situation; trigonometry class. Pulling my eyes up from the desk, they shifted almost immediately to a lanky, blond boy, a smile, accentuated by perfectly white teeth, stretching from cheek to dimpled cheek as he approached. Every part of him oozed confidence and it wasn't hard to see why; if I could match him up with any face I'd seen before, he would have closely resembled a young Hollywood hotshot. Still, I couldn't help but notice, he wasn't quite worthy of a deity title.

"I'm – "

"Kasey, this is Cole," Layla sighed, shaking her head and her eyes rolling ever so slightly when the boy settled into the empty seat beside me with his books in tow. "Ignore him; he hits on anything with boobs."

"That's defamation of character, Layla. I don't hit on anything with boobs. I don't hit on _you_ anymore…" Cole sighed, shooting a glance in Layla's direction for a moment, placing his books down on the table in front of himself. "Now where was I before I was so rudely defamed? Right; I'm Cole."

The smile was already spreading across my lips as I offered my hand in introduction; Cole's friendly disposition seemed contagious. "Hi, uh – Kasey."

Taking my hand, Cole grasped it but didn't shake it, his eyes locking momentarily with mine as he did so. "Funny story, we're actually in Biology together." Cole smirked, pulling his hand from mine gently before leaning on the table. "Mr. Britt's just hard up on the rules so I didn't really get a chance to say anything. Ya know, sit down, shut up, do your work. My last name's Vanders, so I'm… not even in the same zip code as you are where seats are concerned. Gotta love your new seating arrangement though, right?"

"It's alright I guess…" I murmured, pushing back the recent memories of my horrible start to the day with some difficulty, the image of the strange Cullen boy's face – full of some kind of fiery resentment – resurfacing too quickly.

"Yeah, you and Cullen, desk buddies, huh?" Cole chuckled shortly, however he didn't seem amused. "He's really weird if you ask me, always been kind of shifty but this morning was, beyond weird… I don't know. He just kept staring and –"

"Will you stop it, Cole." Layla snapped, her voice bordering on that of anger. "You're always on about Edward… lay off."

I hadn't realized I'd been paying attention to Cole so closely, so wrapped up in what could possibly have been an explanation for the strange behaviour that Layla's interruption startled me to a degree.

Mouthing Layla's words with a twisted face in a mocking manner, Cole rolled his eyes shortly at the girl at my side. "He's weird, creepy even. Not my fault I'm observant…" He completed his words with a shrug of his shoulders.

"I swear to god Cole, you overreact..."

"You weren't there okay Dudley Do-Right… trust me, this wasn't overreacting, you don't understand…."

"What's there to understand? Different people react differently to varied -"

Cole was quick to interrupt.

"I'm sorry, when was the last time 'death glare' was the appropriate reaction to a pretty girl, huh? Never, that's when the last time was. Never."

Layla narrowed her eyes in Cole's direction for a short moment before she shook her head and turned away from the boy. "You're just jealous…"

Cole scoffed, "What's there to be jealous of, huh?

"Lay off of them Cole, they're technically new here too. You don't know them."

"Yeah, new five months ago at the beginning of the year, they've been here long enough…"

"Lay off Cole." Layla rasped, her eyes shifting to myself and then back to Cole almost pointedly.

What had she meant by _them_ …? How many was them and did that mean that the strange Cullen boy's problem wasn't with me after all?

"It's not my fault they're freaky." Cole rasped back as his eyes darted to the front of the class momentarily. "I'm just calling it as I see it, Lay. Besides, Andrew agrees so don't look at me like I'm the bad guy here. Don't you Andy?" Grabbing an eraser from the top of his stacked belongings, Cole lobbed it at the back of a boy's head who sat in the row just in front of him.

"I told you I don't agree to anything you say anymore until I hear the whole story, Cole." A boy interrupted swiftly, swiveling in his seat so that his back was to the front of the classroom. Brushing the shaggy dark hair away from the front of his glasses, a small smile crept up on the boy's lips, "I'm not having a repeat of last spring break thanks."

"As if you weren't already listening in you big baby…" Cole rolled his eyes with a sigh, shaking his head for a moment. "And besides, memories my friend; you know you'll look back on that moment and laugh... one day."

Shooting him a glare, Andrew sighed, sweeping the hair away from his blue eyes once more before he allowed a short, mock laugh to slip from his lips. "Lays, I know you hate to discriminate, but you have to admit, Cullen is weird, there's something off about all of them and you know it.

"Second, I'm Andrew and it's nice to meet you. Don't worry, not all of us are jerks." Andrew whispered rather loudly, not bothering to cloak the wink he sent my way.

"Mr. Vanders? Mr. Erics? Am I to assume that you two can pay attention properly from the back of the classroom?" A voice from the front of the classroom questioned loudly, the chitter-chatter of the surrounding students dying down ever so slightly as I looked up to see a man in a wrinkle free dress shirt and glasses address my new acquaintances.

"Just being friendly, Mr. D, just being friendly." Cole replied in assurance, a smile crossing his face once more as he waved to the teacher and Andrew turned to face the front of the class once more.

***

"I play baseball with the school, on and off ya know." Cole mumbled his mouth full of a cafeteria purchased hamburger as he chewed through his sentence. "Keeps me in shape and I live to play."

Settling into seats at a relatively empty cafeteria table, near the far corner of the large space, Andrew opened up a notebook and began flipping through it, absentmindedly opening up a brown paper lunch bag with his free hand as he did so.

The rest of the morning had gone off without another hitch, English followed Trig and Layla and Cole had been in the same class as well, so I wasn't as new and awkward there as I had been in the first class today – not that it could be more awkward than Biology if I had tried.

Maybe this is what Luke had meant about my needing this, the feeling of normality, of consistency…

Unfurling the top of my brown paper bag lunch, my hand scrounged around almost disinterestedly inside and pulled out the first thing my fingers touched upon. Pulling the find from the paper bag I admired the crimson fruit, turning it in my hand and allowing my eyes to touch the surface, catching the bruise on the opposite site, a flaw on the nearly flawless apple.

Drawing my eyes up from my inspection, they wandered absently as my fingers fiddled with the stem of the fruit in my grasp.

It didn't take long for my eyes to find them with the help of the burning sensation of eyes on me.

I could see them easily from where I sat in the now crowded cafeteria – a perfect view of the table they sat at from between Andrew and Layla's shoulders - and it didn't take me long to understand that they could see me as well. If I could have ignored the distinct feeling of their eyes on me, of being watched intently, _scrutinized_, I would have, but there was a certain intensity about it that made it difficult to do so, that made it difficult to not stare right back.

Immediately, I recognized the boy that had been my assigned desk partner among them. However, even if I hadn't been able to pick him out right away from the curious colour of his tousled hair, I would have noticed him for the simple reason that he was the only one of the five that was not staring at me, he was the only one who kept his eyes intently glued to the surface of the table he sat at. Still, the sight of him sent a strange jolt through my system, an almost sickening feeling.

"Hey Layla…?"

The strange behaviour also made it significantly difficult not to question the stares, so I didn't fight to hold back the query when it slipped past my terse lips. Ripping my eyes away from the group of perfect, seemingly flawless people that sat at that table, I looked to Layla who sat across from me.

"Yeah?"

I paused for a moment, choosing my words as my eyes flashed to them for another moment, looking away quickly when I realized they were still staring.

"Who are they?"

"Finally…" Andrew murmured under his breath from across the table, not bothering to look up and turn around as he continued to scan over his notes.

Was it that obvious?

A chuckle from Cole affirmed my belief that it was indeed obvious. "Thought you'd never ask…."

Leaning over, closer to me casually, Cole shot a glance in Layla's direction as if to check himself before he took a breath, "They're the Cullens, the local freak show. The blond guy, sitting closest, that's Jasper. Kind of weird, doesn't talk a lot. The tiny girl, unconventional hottie in my opinion, short dark hair sitting beside him, that's Alice."

Glancing away as if to divert suspicion, Cole pretended to lean across the table and read over Andrew's notes as he continued, "The big guy, that's Emmett and the blond girl with him, mega hottie, that's Rosalie… then of course there's your desk buddy Edward…"

For a moment, Cole's voice adopted a rather snide tone as 'Edward' rolled off his tongue and past his lips, a hint of jealousy perhaps? In Cole's lapse, Andrew picked up almost dutifully.

"They're Dr. Cullen's kids; he works at the hospital in town. He and his wife kinda adopted them all apparently, so they're not really… related. Jasper and Rosalie are twins, they have a different last name than Alice, Emmett and Edward; Hale." Pausing, Andrew flipped a page in his notebook before moving forward. "An explanation which sets it up for the shocking yet legal fact that they're all together, _together_… well, most of them anyway. Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rosalie…"

Cole didn't wait long to add in his own tid-bits of information. "We're still working on a theory for Edward though. They've been here for almost a year now and he's turned down _every_ girl who's had half the nerve to ask him out."

At Cole's words, Andrew's eyes – which had since drifted back down to his notes - bugged out for a moment, a murmur slipping past his lips amid a flurry of an appropriately timed turning of a page. "… Including Amy Darwin."

At the mention of the girl's name, Layla rolled her eyes pointedly and Cole sucked in a large amount of air through his teeth in an almost painful hiss.

"Ga-ay." Cole coughed shortly thereafter, shifting his eyes almost uneasily as he moved to cover his mouth with a loosely balled fist.

At Cole's words, a movement from the Cullen table caught my attention and I could have sworn I caught the bigger Cullen's – the one Andrew had identified as Emmett – shoulder's shake with a laugh, a small smile pulling up the corner of his lips on his stony features. However, the reaction was over just as quickly as it had caught my attention and Emmett looked away.

I stared after him for a moment, wondering exactly what he had found so amusing, a suddenly strange reaction when gauging the other, rather complacent one that had been unwavering.

Pulling my eyes away from Emmett, my eyes wandered for a brief moment until they caught something that made my stomach lurch and my eyes stop their wandering. Suddenly, my eyes caught Alice's gaze and for a moment, our eyes held with something peculiar… a knowing look of sorts….

I didn't know how long I held her gaze, but it was Cole's voice that shook me out of my trance-like state.  
"So, have you been around town yet?"

Throwing my glance down to the apple in my grip once more, I stuttered out the answer, "uh – no… I –"

Taking a steadying breath, I swallowed my answer and brought the apple to my mouth, biting into it with slight determination.

***

The wind whipped the hair around my face as I followed Layla into the student parking lot, backpack slung lazily over my shoulder.

The rest of the day had been rather uneventful. To my dismay Edward Cullen was in the same last two classes as myself after lunch, however – to my great relief – he was nowhere to be seen when attendance was taken, his absence represented by empty desks and uncollected test papers.

My fortunes – I humbly refused to call it luck - seemed to continue through to the very end of the day when Layla assured me she wouldn't mind giving me a ride back home. Hastily, I accepted and notified Luke who seemed to be slightly worried about what sort of day I had been having…

"So, how do you like Scappoose High?" Layla questioned lightly as she pulled out a thick and noisy bangle of keys from her pocket, opening the car doors before she tossed her school bag into the back seat of the dark blue Honda Accord.

Pulling open the passenger door, I slipped into the front seat and closed the door behind myself, waiting for Layla to settle into the driver seat before I spoke, choosing my words carefully. Allowing my eyes to drift of the rain splotched window, I took a breath, "It's… alright I suppose. Different to say the least…"

Starting the car, Layla pulled out of the parking spot with precision before she spoke again.

"If it's about Edward…"

His name sent another familiar jolt through my system and my eyes were suddenly upon the girl in the driver's seat. "It's not I just –."

However, I stopped myself. What was it _just_?

"Look, I didn't say anything before because well, I hate to prove Cole right…" Layla began after a moment of silence, the lull of a song on the radio filling the dead air between us. "It's hard enough to knock him down a few pegs these days…"

"But?" I edged curiously, cautiously, my fingers digging into the material of the backpack on my lap as I looked at Layla with a strange amount of curiosity.

"But… they were acting kind of strange today… the Cullens I mean. Usually they don't…" Suddenly, Layla laughed, cutting herself off. "Look at me… just, never mind, okay? I shouldn't be saying things like that…"

A breath that I didn't realize I was holding escaped my lips a little too noisily and Layla glanced sideways at my figure as I relaxed my grip on the backpack.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine."

***

I trudged through the front door with unusually heavy feet, closing the door behind myself with a slight slam. Pressing my back up against the door, I leaned almost dependently on it, allowing my school bag – lade with trigonometry and biology texts – to fall to the floor with finality.

The remainder of the ride home with Layla comprised of small-talk and not much else, however, I hadn't been thinking about it as much as I should have when I replied. I was wrapped up in thoughts of what had happened during lunch and the peculiar absence of Edward Cullen in the classes after that event.

I didn't want to think that his absence had something to do with me, but I had been thinking about it since I had left school and I couldn't seem to come up with another _logical_ explanation.

"Hey Kiddo…"

I was so wrapped up in thought that – not unlike the rest of my day – when Luke spoke to me from the kitchen entrance, I jumped slightly.

For a moment, Luke inspected me with a furrowed brow, his hands going through the motions of drying a mug with a dish towel almost mindlessly as he did so. "… How was your day?"

Pushing myself off the door, I stumbled forward slightly but righted myself quickly.  
"Uneventful," I lied without hesitation as I kicked off my shoes and pushed them aside before I started for the stairs.

"Does that mean you're going back tomorrow?" Luke called up the stairs after me, the confusion laced thick in his tone, however the hope there was still evident.

* * *

_**A/N; **If anyone has any questions, don't be shy, ask 'em. I'm a pretty understanding author and I'd be more than happy to clear up any confusion. Also, Scappoose High is an actual high school in Scappoose, Oregon. Just thought it was interesting and you should know that it was._

_Anyhow, R&R please!  
_


	5. Chapter 5

_**DISCLAIMER:**_ _I don't own any of the characters (besides the original ones (Kasey, Cole, Layla, Andrew, Luke etc.)). They're Stephenie Meyer's toys, I'm just playing with 'em. All music is also property of the respective artists and their record labels, I just borrow.  
_

_  
**Recommended Listening for this chapter;;**  
* Preparedness – The Bird and the Bee  
* Haunting – Anberlin  
* Picking up Pieces – Blue October  
* Been Down – Blue October  
* I'm So Sick – Flyleaf _

_

* * *

  
_

I could hear the echo of my footsteps as I padded down the unfamiliar long, sterile white hallway. Periodically, the fluorescent lights overhead – brilliant and twice as bright in the white hall – flickered as I passed under them, pulled on by a quiet force which propelled me to the end of the hallway.

The dark grey doors at the end of the hall swung as I approached, my name carried on the whispers of strange breeze that pushed them, caused them to sway hypnotically.

"Kasey…"

_What are you doing?_ A voice in the back of my mind warned ominously as I touched the grey doors, cool to the touch, and stilled them, pausing just outside what lay behind them momentarily. Ignoring the warning, I pushed through the swinging doors, following the pulling feeling in my cut which could not, would not be denied. Walking through the grey doors, I allowed them to swing closed behind me.

Ultimately, it was not difficult to understand exactly where I was once I entered the room completely.

Though bright with overhead lights, the room seemed bleak, void of hope; even the window, small, rectangular and fixed at the top of the far wall which allowed a small amount of light to seep into the room seemed ominous. Along the wall to the left, small doors labeled with names I did not recognize sat closed, handles locked in place with identical thick gold fastenings, key locks.

A cold metal slab shone abandoned and almost too sterile in the center of the room. Upon approaching, I could see the metallic implements lain out on a sliding tool tray; scalpels and bone cutters, cameras and hand saws.

A morgue.

"Kasey…"

The whispering sound of my name, unusually loud and unsettlingly close, broke the silence, causing the hair on the back of my neck to rise slightly as I twisted to find the source of the voice.

"Hello?" I could hear my own voice call to the disembodied one, but I couldn't remember – pressed against the cool slab at the center of the room in a rising sense of fear – ever opening my mouth to do so.

Silence answered my query; frightening in its own respect.

I waited in the silence for what seemed like an eternity before I coaxed my frozen legs to move. However, in the moment my foot inched forward across the tiled floor with the intent to lead me from the ill begotten place, a silence shattering clatter frightened my body to stillness once more.

When the courage had built for some time and I finally mustered a nip of bravery to look around for the noise, it did not take my long to find – on immaculate white tiling – the cause of the noisy disturbance. Sitting on the floor, near the wall of tightly secured doors which were labeled with names I would have rather not have recognized, sat a golden lock, its golden glint catching my eye and holding my attention rapt.

Furrowing my brow, I cautiously approached the lock, slightly confused as I crouched low to gather the unlocked security device in my grasp, to inspect it; unlocked it seemed, without a key…

Drawing my eyes up slowly from the lock in my suddenly trembling hand, I allowed my vision to scan the small, labeled doors, finally settling on one… the only one without a lock. Pushing myself into a standing position, my eyes focused on the label on the small rectangular door protruding slightly from the wall; Olesky, J.

The lock fell to the floor once more with a muted thud as it fell from my hands; my feet no longer frozen as I slowly propelled my body backwards. No, this wasn't happening… this couldn't be real. As I backed away, I watched the handle on the small door on the wall compress itself, releasing the catch, allowing it to creek open on its hinges until it hit the metal behind it with a clank when it was wide open.

My entire body shook as I continued to watch – eyes wide in horror – as the tray hidden behind the small door on the wall slowly pulled itself out as if by some invisible hands, working away as if I was not there to witness the ghostly occurrence. It was not long before the tray was fully extended, a white sheet, immaculate and flawless, covered a bumpy, misshapen object beneath it.

I could feel the texture of the swinging door behind me now and suddenly, I no longer felt compelled to be within the room. I knew what came next… I'd watched too many horror movies to not know and I was not keen on sticking around. Pressing against the door, I waited for it to give way as the slab, covered by a white sheet, sat unmoving, stilled. Expecting to slip right through, stumble even with the applied weight, I felt the panic rise in my chest as the doors held against my pressure.

Ripping my eyes away from the slab, I concentrated frantically on the uncooperative doors which had once swung so freely either way. Throwing my shoulder into it, a sob slipped past my lips when I realized, it was no longer an exit option… it had been open not but a minute ago, hadn't it?

Eyes skittering across the room, they fell on the narrow window at the top of the far wall, the last of two exit options. Quickly, I took off toward it, grabbing the rolling slab to use as something to stand upon to reach the high window. Pushing it flush against the wall with a rather loud clatter, I scrambled, all the while fighting the wheels which rolled on their own accord under the pressure of my weight, on top of the table, pushing myself to my feet once I had managed to do so. Reaching up, I grasped the small window sill, searching for a catch that I might undo to escape the suddenly small space which got smaller by the second. The tips of my fingers had just brushed the latch when I heard it again.

"Kasey…"

My name; now undeniably raspy, harsh… frightening.

Trembling, I swept my hand back across the sill to feel the latch once more, to pry it open hurriedly as I threw a glance back over my shoulder. However, instead of the latch, I caught the tips of my searching digits on something sharp, something that cut through my skin as easily as a hot knife through butter. Sucking air in sharply through my teeth, I pulled my hand back with a hiss. Blood seeped from the deep cut like water from the fault lines on a cracked vase, spilling over my finger in a steady succession of rouge. Gripping my finger  
the blood trickled over my closed fist. Clean cuts always hurt the most, ironic.

There was a slapping sound, the sound of bare feet on tile that caught my attention though part of me didn't want to turn and face where the sound was coming from.

What my eyes touched twisted my innards harshly, stirred the bile in my stomach violently. I felt like I wanted to be ill, a sour taste invading my mouth as if I was going to be while my legs shook uncontrollably beneath me, threatening to give out at any moment without warning.

Standing before me, his leg twisted oddly beneath him, a patch of scalp missing from the left side of his head, exposing bleached bone and skin tattered and frayed like the ends of ribbon, was Jeremy. He wasn't looking at me, his eyes directed toward his own discoloured chest as his fingers, some scraped to the bone, touching the huge stitched 'Y' shaped incision that had once split his body open for autopsy purposes. The air was rank with rot and moist soil…

Sliding off the wheeled slab, away from the one last escape that I could have hoped for – now barred I realized – a hand wandered up to cover my mouth, suppressing a gag as a wave of bile surged up my throat and burned, smudging blotches of blood onto my pallid skin as I did so.

His tousled hair was matted with mud and shimmered with shards of broken glass; it didn't look soft like I had remembered it being the last time I had touched him, my hands aching now with the memory of the contact. Warm tears streaked my cheeks, mixing with the blood splotched there and turning a tinged pink.

Removing my hand from my mouth, I battled past the bile for a moment, a stitch in time wherein I felt my lips form the vowels and consonants, my voice filling in the movements of my lips with a whisper…

"Jeremy?"

Suddenly his head jerked up, startled as if he hadn't noticed my presence until I had spoken. At first his features, grim, disturbing and disfigured, were confused as his eyes – no longer beautiful and blue like I had remembered – filmy and almost unseeing found me at the far end of the room. However, after a moment his mangled face softened ever so slightly.

"Kasey?" His marred lips formed my name and my heart skipped in an almost elation. Despite my horror, I missed his voice, missed the warmth of his words on my throat when he whispered my name before kissing me. I missed my Jeremy and my heart echoed my feelings with a painful ache.

Looking down on himself once more, Jeremy turned his sightless eyes to me once more. "What's wrong with me?"

_I killed you…_ My lips trembled as the thought crossed my mind, the sickness rising once more to replace the light feeling of hearing his voice again; something I had once thought was impossibility. "I- I… I Jeremy I'm so sorry…"

"What did you do to me, Kasey?" His voice trembled as he spoke as if an anger wanted to badly replace the light tone. "What did you do?!"

Blame, this is what I had been waiting for, this is what I deserved… this is why I had been punishing myself for so long. "We were in an accident…" I took a gasping breath, saliva thick in my mouth as tears slipped down my cheeks and slid down my neck once they reached the cut of my chin. "They tried to save you… but they couldn't… I'm so sorry… I love you… I – "

Crossing the room and closing the large divide between us, dragging his oddly twisted leg behind him all the while, Jeremy approached me… a mixed look about him.

"Kasey… why am I alone?" The thing that looked like but could not have been Jeremy echoed, his paled hand reaching out to touch me as I backed away just as quickly as he approached, fright gripping me and holding fast as I back pedaled into the metal tray with the instruments, knocking them to the floor with a cacophony of clatters.

Reaching out his cold hand gripped my arm tightly in a quick motion, digits digging into the flesh it found beneath them with an almost inhuman strength as I started at his touch.

"Jeremy…?" I could feel my lips floundering for a moment, my heart pounding erratically in my chest as I tried to shrink away from the clammy touch before the words formed and left my mouth. "You're hurting me… Let go, please!"

Eyes – lifeless and filmy – flashed up to hold mine and opening his mouth to speak with blue lips, a screeching sound echoed from inside of him.

I sat bolt upright in bed, my legs tangled in a mess of sheets and the clothes I had worn yesterday which I had decided to throw to the bottom of my single bed. Squinting against the light that leaked in through my bedroom window, it took me a moment to register my surroundings as the rain pitter-pattered a rhythmic tune against the window pane.

Chest rising and falling in rapid succession, my head pounded with each screech of my alarm clock, as an almost raw pain emanated from my chest, a rough ache that was not unfamiliar to me over the past few weeks. Glancing over at the small shaky bedside table, I threw a well aimed fist toward the alarm clock that rested there, dutifully reporting the time. I sat in the silence then, a blank looked fixed upon my outstretched arm for a moment before I actually saw them; four long bruises – left behind by finger tips my closest guess and an extension of digits – arched vertically up my left arm… the same arm that Jeremy had gripped in my all too real dream. Turning my arm over slowly, a fifth circular bruise impressed itself on my inner arm… five bruises, distinct and purple against my pallid skin stood out oddly.

A shiver ran the length of my spine as I turned my arm over and over again several times, stunned to silence at the strange discovery.

The sound of my name snapped me out of my silence.

"Kasey! I've got to get to the shop and if you're not ready in a half hour, I can't give you a ride!"

Pulling myself from bed, and the tangle of sheets I padded my way to the oak dresser across the room, pausing in my strides only when I passed the window. Furrowing my brow, I shivered slightly as a breeze – cool and damp – blew in through the opened window, tossing my blinds around and turning them into dancing, lively bits of material. Rolling my eyes slightly, I sighed. _Luke_. He had always had a nasty habit of opening windows in the middle of the night because he was too warm and he wanted to conserve energy by not turning on a fan or the A/C.

_Hippie_, I sighed mentally as I took a step toward the opened port, reaching up and closing the window with finality and locking it deftly. I groaned loudly as my feet touched a small rain puddle on the floor in front of the window that I noticed had already run toward my bed; Great.

***

_"I will break into your thoughts  
With what's written on my heart  
I will break, break_

_I'm so sick,  
Infected with where I live  
Let me live without this  
Empty bliss,  
Selfishness  
I'm so sick  
I'm so sick…."_

Luke leaned forward and clicked the car stereo system over to the radio with a flick of his wrist, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as a more familiar sound replaced the music we had been listening to – the sound of a weather man.. "What the hell are kids listening to these days?"

"It's Flyleaf…" I mulled almost thoughtlessly. My mind had been wandering since Luke had hustled me from my room, through breakfast and into the car. I'd absently grabbed an old CD that I had burned a couple years back in the process and at Luke's offer to listen to _my_ music on the way to Scappoose, I'd popped the old disc into the car CD player. "And you've just aged yourself… just so you know."

Luke was silent for a moment, his hands gripping the steering wheel as if he was considering my words, weighing them seriously. In a moment, without sparing me a look, he switched from the radio back to the CD with another flick of his wrist.

_"If you want more of this  
We can push out, sell out, die out  
So you'll shut up  
And stay sleeping  
With my screaming in your itching ears_

_I'm so sick…"_

"I'm _thirty four_, just so _you_ know…" Luke grumbled in reply, his fingers nimbly flicking on the windshield wipers as a light rain began peppering the car windows with water droplets which ran down the glass in streaking rivulets. I barely held back a grin.

There was a moment of silence between us, my eyes searching the streaking landscape past the blurred windows before I spoke once more. "Luke, did you open my window again last night? There was a puddle in my room this morning and -"

"It's been raining all week Kase…" Luke replied shortly as if the weather should explain everything without his having to answer directly. "You must have left it open last night before you went to sleep."

Nodding shortly, I diverted my eyes back out to look out through the window, ignoring the persistent, nagging voice that told me there was a void where there should have been a memory of opening a window. In all honesty, it wasn't difficult to forget opening a window though I supposed, with what had been going on lately. "Yeah… I guess."

***

I hadn't had a chance to dread the thought of Biology class that morning until I found myself splitting the crowds in the hall to reach the morning class. Clinging to the strap of the backpack that rested – suddenly heavier now than I had remembered it being this morning – on my shoulders, I took a deep breath, steadying myself; this was nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be cautious about it was school, biology class and Edward Cullen was a regular seventeen year old just like the other kids in my classes. Though he was decidedly strange with an unhidden amount of what I could only gauge as loathe toward me, I honestly couldn't have expected everyone to like me at the school, could I?

However, a nagging feeling persisted as I stood just outside the classroom, hidden behind a length of lockers so that whoever was already in the class could not see me. So why was it that I cared? I cared what Edward Cullen thought about me, cared about if people knew what had caused my move to Scappoose High so late in the year. If Edward knew, if anyone knew about what I had done to Jeremy, I -

I felt an arm snake around my waist and I was already twisting out of it before I heard the voice.  
"Kase, whoa… relax. It's me."

Turning quickly to match a name with the voice, my eyes fell upon Cole, a smirk twisting his lips wryly. "You hiding out from someone?" Cole murmured, pocketing his hands, a satchel backpack slung across his shoulder as he nodded toward the door which we were both standing outside of.

"Uh-," I stalled for a moment, glancing at the classroom door thoughtfully. If Edward Cullen knew about Jeremy… what would happen to me? "No, no one." I shook my head once, a quick movement so that even I couldn't take it back once it had been done.

"Well, shall we then?" Cole made a sweeping motion toward the door.

Taking a step forward, I didn't bother to answer.

"Thus begins the descent into hell…" Cole sighed in attempts I was sure to be humorous as he stepped in behind me and entered the classroom.

Descent into hell was right, descent to the seventh circle of hell to be exact…

I could tell his strange eyes were upon me the moment I entered the crowded room and it took all I could muster to keep my eyes from seeking him out, from finding those golden eyes with my murky brown ones. There was something undeniably pulling about Edward I had learned yesterday, something that lured me to him like a planetary gravity, something strong and binding despite an inner voice that told me to avoid him, to stay away.

Averting my eyes to the front of the classroom as I passed Mr. Britt's unoccupied desk, I paused before the oak hardtop for a moment furrowing my brow slightly. Everything remained untouched on the desk and it appeared pristine. When Mr. Britt had been sitting there the other day, I had noted, everything seemed cluttered with personal belongings, now… it was suddenly different.

The reason came waddling through the door a moment later -- weaving through the students cluttered here and there around their friend's desks, chatting loudly – and approached the desk with a clearing of his throat.  
"Take your seat young Ms." He commanded nasally. Redirecting my eyes upon him, I faltered for a second. The man was rather pudgy around the middle; a doughnut clutched between two fingers of one hand and a smart looking brown leather briefcase clutched in his other grubby hand; the crumbs of the doughnut he was holding sprinkled across his chest sporadically, which the man either didn't notice or didn't care about. It wasn't hard to tell what he was doing here, a substitute teacher.

Giving the man one last discerning look, I took a breath and turned away before he could ask me again, heading toward my assigned seat while my stomach bubbled with nerves on high alert. I kept my eyes glued to the cracked tile under foot as I walked.

Like the other day, I took my assigned seat and placed my knapsack on the floor beside the lab table carefully, straightening up as the substitute teacher corralled the last of the wandering students to their assigned seats.

"I'm Mr. Doyle. Mr. Britt is decidedly out of commission for today and has requested that you watch this film on Autotrophic plant life." Shuffling back to the desk where he had laid his leather briefcase, Mr. Doyle produced an old and battered VHS. There was a groan among the class, but Mr. Doyle ignored the sounds of protest.

Dragging the old television from the front corner of the room on its wheeling platform, Mr. Doyle placed it front and center and popped the video in, waving the student closest to the lights to flick them off.

It wasn't that I had forgotten Edward's presence in the seat beside mine, I don't think I could have even if my life depended on it, but the moment the classroom was plunged into the darkness – broken only by the dim light that crept into the room through the spaces where the blinds on the classroom windows failed to keep the light out – something changed. Instantly, the atmosphere – at least from what I could feel – turned electric, my muscles tensing as the beginnings of the film flickered across the screen at the front of the room and a monotonous voice started up.

I simply couldn't concentrate. I couldn't hear the voice emanating from the television; I couldn't see the images of growing plants flashing across the screen in a melding of frames… all I could concentrate on was the suddenly irregular breathing patterns that inflated and deflated my chest; the tense atmosphere that caused it… Edward Cullen's eyes burning holes into the side of my face. I didn't dare impart him a glance, or even a coveted look from the corner of my wide eyes. Slowly, I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the surface of the desk as I knotted my fingers in my hair, pulling my long locks over as my fingers raked through the tangled mess unsteadily and created a curtain of brown between my desk partner and I. Was it fear that provoked such an action? A simple reaction to an undeniably tense situation; or maybe a strange response to feelings I couldn't remember feeling since… since… Jeremy.

The thought struck me oddly. At first, I masticated the idea with little trouble, little grief or guilt… the next moment, it felt as if I had been slapped in the face with an open palm. How could I think that? How could I let myself feel like that even if the possibility of my feelings were only driven by what seemed to be a common misunderstanding of the strange and unknown; in this case, Edward Cullen and his uncommon family. I didn't deserve to feel like this, to _think_ of feeling like this… especially with someone who obviously detested my existence let alone my presence. Of course, if I had come to this conclusion aloud, someone would have protested my quick conclusion about my desk partner, my peer. But I was sure he hated me; there was no other explanation… even this early in my attendance at Scappoose.

My heart gave a sputtering lurch before struggling through the next few beats that followed, a pain rising in my chest. Through the curtain of hair draped over my left shoulder, I could see Edward's paled skin, his hand pulled into a tight fist; maybe I wasn't the only one who could feel the electricity in the air…

Daringly, I turned and rested my eyes upon his paled face fully, his eyes staring almost blankly ahead. I couldn't guess how long I had been staring at his perfect face, flawless and clear of any signs of teenage puberty, but I was sure he probably knew of my eyes upon him from the moment I turned with the intent to look at him. Turning toward me, he caught my eyes with his topaz ones, holding them for a long, almost endless moment in which I seriously considered turning away to hide behind my vale of brunette locks once more. Releasing me from his gaze, his eyes wandered down to the arm I had lain across the surface of desk top, his eyes narrowing minutely as if assessing something he saw there, his jaw tensed as if he was biting his tongue, holding back from saying something, _doing_ something. Watching him, an eyebrow rose on my face in curiosity, I followed his gaze down to my left arm, and immediately, my eyes caught what he was seeing: the skin and the stark bruises inlaid on the pallid surface visible courtesy of my rolled up sweater sleeve. My stomach jumped slightly as I studied them once more; they had gotten significantly darker since I had found them a few hours ago… and they brought back the memory of the horrible nightmare with sharp succinct clarity, a reel playing out in my head as I recalled what had happened.

Pulling down my sleeve sharply over the bruises, I looked up and caught Edward's eyes once more… and though there was a hate about the way he stared at me, something else hid expertly behind the loathing… a look that made me feel almost as if he felt _sorry_ for me.

Turning away sharply, a bout of anger rose from the depth of me; how dare he feel sorry for me? Hate me, yes. Shun me and never speak with me and acknowledge my presence only to impart me with hateful glances, why not… it was what I deserved in my opinion, but feel sorry for me? No.

Tightening my fist I fell behind my curtain of hair in retreat, the bruises aching slightly as the muscles flexed beneath my skin. Closing my eyes tightly, instead of darkness I was greeted by the haunting appearance of the Jeremy I had seen in my dream. The Jeremy that was not mine, his face rotting and lifeless… full of blame, and loneliness… a sickness stirred the bile in my stomach and pushed it up my throat.

Eyes flashing open, I pushed myself from the stool suddenly, making a bee-line straight for the classroom door and ignoring any possible motions Mr. Doyle would make to stop me.

Once I made it into the brightly lit hall, the electric atmosphere dissipated and I could feel hot prickles of angry tears burning the corners of my eyes as navigated the empty, quiet halls, heading to the closest women's washroom I could find.

I found one in less than three minutes. Stiff arming the door open I slipped into the bathroom quietly and took a breath before I started towards a stall.

Closing the stall door sharply once I had reached it – the last one in the long row of empty stalls - I took a steady breath before I leaned up, back pressed to the door and slid down slowly until I was crouched on the floor. Pulling my knees up close to my chest, I hugged them closely, burying my head in the comfort of my knees.

This wasn't the same; I was kidding myself to think I could fit in here… I was a monster and I couldn't escape that no matter how far or how fast I ran. I would always be the one who had killed Jeremy… I wasn't allowed to forgive myself for that.

* * *

_**A/N:** Reviews would be awesome and epic. Please and thank you!_


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